The Perpendicular Lunch
by Quisp
Summary: Vampire Josef Kostans finds Detective Edmund Reid simply scrumptious.


**The Perpendicular Lunch  
**By Taz (aka Quisp)

Josef had been looking forward to that evening: a new production at Covent Garden and dining _à la carte_ in the private boxes. As it happened, some filthy hobbledehoy had tracked him to the very doors of the Royal Opera House and with the temerity all London street rats displayed shoved a scrap of foolscap at him, braying, "Timmons wants yer!" Then, being a wise child, the boy took to his heels and ran for his life.

'_Ware riot!_' Only that penciled scrawl in Timkin's fist could have diverted him, with all the speed a hired hack could manage over the uneven stones and through the narrow drags of Whitechapel to the flash house in the heart of the warren that was currently nominated _The Silver Chalice_.

Timkins loved his jokes, but _The Chalice_, as it was known, didn't go out its way to accommodate humans. It didn't discriminate either (What would be the point?) but there was a rumor going round that the Bills were about to start cracking down on the friends of Oscar Wilde again. It had happened before and, in the course of things, the occasional vampire establishment was rousted; it never ended well for either side.

He'd been expecting a brawl at the very least, but the streets were empty and when he walked in, all was peaceful. There he'd stood in the doorway to Timmon's front room, with the air—what with the fug of tobacco and unwashed, decomposing bodies—almost as thick and greasy as the London particular presently obscuring the city. And then someone—and God help the vampire, when Josef discovered who it was, and he would—let a long low whistle. And Timmons—behind the bar, polishing a glass with a filthy rag—Timmons who had the nerve to summon him as if he were a lackey, took one look at his best rig.

"Strike me if it ain't Doctor bloody Jekyll!" he said.

"Hide!" someone yelled and vampires ducked as Josef cleared the distance from doorway to bar top in one leap. He leaned in Timmon's face, showed fangs and snarled, "I had tickets to '_Le Damnation de Faust_!'"

Unfortunately Timmons had known Josef ever since _The Bloody Cup_, as it was then, had given shelter to the vampire refugees of the Great Fire. "Put 'em away, Jo," he said. "You can still catch second act."

"Do not try my patience. It was Adelaide Fournier's London debut!"

"And I'm sure that's somethin' to tell the kiddies one day. In the meantime…" With a slight jerk of his head Timmons indicated the hall to the back parlor. "We've a problem of a delicate nature that wants your fine Italian touch."

"If you're having me on…"

"There's a swell rozzer from the H Division in my back parlor."

"_The Cup_ can't be on their list. Dammit, we pay enough to keep it off! How many of them?"

"One."

"Timkin, you handled the Norman Invasion! Are you saying you can't handle one bluebottle?" Timmon's look merely became more sardonic as he saw Josef picking up the undercurrent in the room. Tension barely held in check. _Hunger…_ "What's going on?"

"Inspector Reid, his self of H Division is getting' drunk as a blind monkey in my back room."

"Ah, shite!" said Josef.

"'S what I thought." Timmons held up a glass and inspected it by the flickering gaslight. He gave a dull place a little some extra attention. "It'd be inconvenient for all parties and that particular bluebottle went missing. As I said 'delicate.'"

"Fuck you, Tim."

"You're welcome, Jo. Now, get off my counter before you scratch the varnish."

Josef removed himself to the floor.

He and Tim understood each other perfectly. Iterations of _The Cup_ had done business at that same location by the river since John Lackland's day. Little had been altered about the present building since it had achieved its license in 1789. Nor had the clientele changed for the better: pimps, toolers, mug-hunters, draggle tails, and clergymen's daughters; sly faces under greasy caps and shabby bonnets; vampires in every way. A human, a drunk, a bluebottle even, was their natural prey. Too bad it was Reid. He'd heard about Reid—read about him in the papers—picked up intelligence from his connections at Scotland Yard and the underworlds.

A protégé of Aberline, the man was a bulldog. Once fixed on a case, Reid was not to be dissuaded by influence or bribery. And his men were loyal to him. If something happened, inconvenient wouldn't be the word for it. Still, a bud of curiosity was pushing through Josef's general irritation.

Shrugging the heavy black satin cape from his shoulders, he draped it over his arm. "Gimme a shant," he said. "A clean one. And whiskey." Chances were he'd need it.

He found Reid at a table in the shadows beside the fireplace. To a vampire he may as well have been lit with lime-light. There was about him, beneath the niff of Macassar oil, wet wool, shoe polish and horse shit, and a strong natural masculinity, the reek of blood. He had to have stepped in it. It was soaked into the leather of his shoes and stained the cuffs of his trousers.

Humans had no idea how terribly, terribly vulnerable they were. Reid smelled as ripe as a summer peach and that he had been, thus far, unmolested was evidence of the historical importance of _The Cup_ to the vampire community. And to the absolute rule that Tim exercised within it. But should Reid leave here alone and alive there was not a chance he would be either before he had proceeded a block.

Breathing deeply to get himself under control, Josef put his glass on the table and draped his cape over a chair back. Pulling up another chair, he turned it around. "Do you mind company?" he said, straddling it.

Reid looked up in surprise, and what struck Josef were his eyes. Of an indeterminate color, somewhere between the blue and green muted plaid of his suit, they were surprisingly gentle, and remarkably clear—given the inroads he'd made in the brandy bottle standing by his left hand. Josef was pleased to note, it was a brandy that had been laid down in the reign of the first Napoleon.

Reid blinked at him like a drowsey owlet. "Fish-and-soup," he said.

"I beg your pardon?" Josef started, and then comprehended Reid had fixed on the snowy front of his shirt. "Ah... I had tickets to _Faust_."

"You are a man who appreciates theater." _And you must be a detective_, Josef refrained from saying. The precision with which Reid asserted his words was a clue to his condition.

"Mr. Reid…" Reid's brow rose at his name. "You don't want to be here."

"I do," Reid averred. "This is the only damn place in Whitechapel Drake won't think to look."

"The Drake, he is a friend of yours?"

"M' sergeant… He would come and hare me home."

"He would correct to do so, Mr. Reid. How long do you intend to remain?" The question appeared to baffle Reid. "How long?" Josef repeated. "I ask out of concern for your well-being."

Reid thought about it. "Until I can't see a hole in a ladder," he said, "although, I can not make out how it is your concern."

"Ordinarily, I would agree. But I think that your sergeant and your men not mention your friends and family would be distraught if something should happened to you."

"What could happen to me?" Reid was suddenly looking sharply at Josef. The bulldog was alert.

"You know the lanes of Whitechapel as well as I do."

"Then you know these lanes are in my charge; I walk them where I will."

"You are heedless and stubborn."

"Who are you to speak to me so?"

"My name is Kostan. I am a businessman in the city. The proprietor of this public house is an old friend of mine. He only means you well."

"I entered here on the presumption that I would be allowed to drink myself into oblivion free from the interference of well-meaning fools." Reid reached for the bottle, but a spark jumped in the fireplace and he became distracted by the bare board floors and the walls encrusted with centuries of paint and dirt. "You must love your friend," he said.

"As the Devil loves holy water," Josef said.

The sudden smile that graced Reid's face was brief and wistful. Josef caught his breath and discovered tragedy in the man. I had been overlaid by the stronger scents that he'd already recorded. It was in the acrid smack of dried sweat and burnt linen. It was a sense of loss, and a hunger that matched Josef's own, nearly. Josef, already deeply aroused, said, "Let me take you home."

"I will not go," Reid said. He reached for the bottle again. Josef caught his wrist and squeezed, letting the man have a hint of the strength he was capable of exerting, should he want to, and felt the throb of Reid's blood beat harder.

"Let me walk with you back to your station house. Your safety is my sole consideration." I was a lie; they both knew it.

Reid's gaze travelled from Josef hand on his wrist to Josef's lips, where it lingered. "I am wide awake, Sir," he said, at last.

"Then walk with me," Josef said, and squeezed.

"If you insist."

Released, Reid rose and took his bowler from the mantel. Josef stood as well and seated the black cape on his shoulders with one deft swirl. If the man took him for some swell pouf, nothing more needed to be said.

It was well that no other vampire was brash or stupid enough to follow them out into the fog; Josef was not inclined to share. He kept a den in Whitechapel. It was not far but only half a block there was a passageway. There in the dank and dark, up against the bricks, he took his first taste of Reid.

They kissed savagely, pushing and grinding hard against each other. Reid lost his hat as Josef forced his head back and began to worry his throat. Reid groaned and melted. Then he felt Josef's fangs for the first time and went perfectly still. Josef could smell fresh fear. Would he fight or flee? But Reid had long ago mastered his body's response to terror. He whispered, "What are you?" The words were clear and steady.

Josef took hold of him by the chin. Fangs extended, he pressed a rough kiss on his mouth. "Whatever I am, I mean you no harm. That is the truth. But what will you, I will have you."

He would not have been surprised if Reid had fought then. Instead, despite that he was panting as if he'd just run a great distance, Reid put his head back, and made an offering of himself. Even if it were possible he knew how much a vampire's strength overmatched his own, such unconditional surrender would have moved Josef.

Suddenly his need for this suffering man was as much akin to love as it was to hunger. Wrapping them both in heavy satin, he drew Reid's head to his shoulder and found the place beneath Reid's jaw. He tongued it, feeling the drumming of the blood beneath the skin and, incidentally, numbing it so that Reid would feel only the pressure when Josef's fangs pierced him. He relished the bitter earthy flavor and rode his hunger for as long as he could bear to before giving in, in his turn, to a need more powerful than himself.

He heard Reid give a soft gasp as he was pricked and penetrated for the first time, and then the bright coppery tang of blood was pouring into Josef's mouth—life freely given. In the grip of his hunger, he drew and swallowed, and drew and swallowed, and became locked in a rhythm so compelling and so pleasurable that it could kill. That it did not was because Reid started a low- pitched counterpoint cry, a keening that insinuated Josef's awareness, and reminded him that he was more than an appetite, and the man in his arms more than food. Still, it was hard to tear his mouth away. When he was able to, and did so, Reid whimpered, "No…"

He put his hand to Josef's face and Josef pressed into it, nuzzling, until he had himself fully under control again and trust himself to merely give the wound in Reid's throat a lick to staunch the blood. It didn't stanch the sound of Reid's pain, but kisses did. Kisses slow and deep, delivered as Josef undid the buttons of his trousers. When Josef put him back against the bricks, "Please, I want…" There was no doubt of what he wanted. The act of being fed upon was one that humans could experience with pleasure; some more than others, and clearly Reid was one of them.

"Hush, sweetling. I would have you again, but you've three sheets in the wind and we can't bring you home like this." So saying Josef knelt and took more of Reid, the burgeoning flesh and, soon, a pungent mouthful of spunk. He spat it out in order to catch Reid before he fell.

Unlike the vampires in gothic novels, who seemed to have no trouble carrying their lovers about in their arms, Josef had always found it a bit tricky, especially when the lover was a large man. He hoisted Reid over his shoulder and picked the bowler out of the filth. That would need cleaning. Fortunately his den was not far, and it was likely anyone who saw them would make the correct inference.

The den was a single room, accessed from an inside court where Josef kept a change of identity in the event of an emergency. There was also a bed.

Reid woke up as Josef laid him on it. He stayed quiet until the lamp was lit, and he could see how completely disheveled he was. "Did we...?"

"We did."

"Dear Lord, this is that awkward." Feeling his throat, Reid looked up at Josef. "Are you…?"

"I am."

Reid tried to sit up as he opened the wardrobe.

"What are you doing?"

"I am preparing a very little brandy and a great deal of water, which you will drink." Josef matched the words with the action. He concealed from Reid the drops of laudanum he added to the tumbler. He sat down on the bed and helped Reid hold the glass. The help was needed. "You've lost a great deal of blood. I expect that you're thirsty and that you don't feel well. But then you wouldn't have, would you?"

"No." Reid pushed the tumbler away. It was empty and brandy was dribbling down his chin.

"Wipe your sauce-box."

Reid's effort was not very effective; the laudanum was already working. Josef leaned back against the headboard. It only wanted a little encouragement for Reid to snuggle up against him.

"Are you going to kill me?" Reid said, dreamily.

"No. You will sleep here in safety throughout the night. In the morning you will wake up with a, may I say well-deserved, hangover. There will a key in your hand." He stroked Reid's head. "What then? Mmmm...?"

Reid's only response was a ragged snore.

"I will have you forever."

_Finis__  
__12/08/2013_


End file.
